


The Borders of Experience

by Sath



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Carp Jokes, Frottage, M/M, Oral Sex, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, arts and crafts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/pseuds/Sath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly and Prouvaire navigate art, meaning, Catholicism, and the family. Alternatively, Prouvaire gets kicked out of a shop, Grantaire advocates for carp, and Feuilly refuses a commission but not breakfast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Borders of Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twofrontteethstillcrooked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/gifts).



When Feuilly was eight years old, he was apprenticed to Prosper Aveline. The Avelines had been a family of skilled engravers going back to the 17th century; the line ended in Prosper, whose talent was so middling he spent it on cheap leaf fans and miniatures for the working poor. Because he had no children of his own, Prosper tried to make a child out of Feuilly. It had been too strange to be loved for no particular reason or skill, and Feuilly found no answering tenderness within himself. He wept when Prosper died after two long weeks of pain, his stomach swollen with infection, but between the stink and the indignity, Feuilly wasn’t sure what had moved him.

Feuilly was fourteen, old enough to go to Paris and work for Jan Ankwicz as a fan painter. Ankwicz appreciated Feuilly’s efficiency above all, and though Feuilly’s bookishness puzzled him, he never minded as long as Feuilly remained productive. He was the lone Frenchman in an atelier full of émigrés and women, a position both privileged and excluded at once, which suited Feuilly’s temperament. Feuilly kept his ears open every day, learning fragments of Polish, Russian, and Yiddish, displaced tongues which first gave him practical words – glue, lace, please – and then opened into discontent – serf, partition, pogrom. The women had been harder to understand at first, growing up as he had, but even their mysteries were soon made sensible, narratives not so different from his own. He found he enjoyed the company of women, though his body was insensible to them.    

His good standing with Ankwicz, and his native French, allowed him small but necessary luxuries, such as taking a few hours to visit the boutique of Jean-Pierre Duvelleroy. Maison Duvelleroy had done the whole industry a favor when the Duchess de Berry appeared with a leaf fan, making them once again fashionable in France instead of merely shipped overseas. Duvelleroy himself was a man of unforgiving standards, and Feuilly had dressed carefully in a businessman’s black suit, borrowed from Ankwicz to earn himself peace while he looked over Duvelleroy’s designs. They were too fine to be reproduced faithfully in Ankwicz’s atelier, but their customers would soon want similar pieces to Duvelleroy’s endless parade of wedding scenes.

By the nature of his work, Feuilly knew far more of how the bourgeoisie amused themselves than his own class. He supposed their life had far fewer picnics than they preferred to think. Feuilly was contemplating a fan copied from Watteau when he heard Duvelleroy raise his voice.

“I do not care if you are one of the Gévaudan Prouvaires – I have never heard of them, it, or you, but the Queen holds a Duvelleroy in her hands, and so I have no need for your eccentricity, no matter how rich.”

Prouvaire seemed torn between amusement and disbelief. He gathered the thick wool of his anachronistic doublet in his fingers, as if holding it would confer some of his family’s respectability into the material. Feuilly prepared to vouch for his friend, though he didn’t know anything about Prouvaire which would commend his character to a shopkeeper. When Prouvaire’s eyes met Feuilly’s, he seemed not to know him without his worker’s cap, as if Feuilly were the one dressed outrageously.  

“You have been a lesson, M. Duvelleroy,” Prouvaire said, keeping his gaze on Feuilly. “Thank you.”

Feuilly followed Prouvaire out. Lightly stepping around the muck of the Rue du Bac, Prouvaire’s mouth crooked into grin. “I almost didn’t recognize you, M. _Habit Noir_.” 

 “I did not think you were the type of person to throw your name around,” Feuilly replied.

“Neither did I.” Prouvaire slowed until he was walking next to Feuilly. “But he seemed to find names very important – just not mine. It gives me a little hope for the future, although I confess to slight offense.”

“How generous of you.”

Prouvaire looked disarmingly sweet, particularly when he kept smiling; he reminded Feuilly of an indulgent Cupid, forever on the cusp of masculinity. He was twenty and could pass for fifteen, but he had the disposition of an old Jesuit.

“I have determined you came to Duvelleroy’s to spy,” Prouvaire said.

“Could I have had another reason?”

“No.”

But what had brought Prouvaire into the shop? He couldn’t even imagine Prouvaire wanting a fan from Duvelleroy’s, as any lover of his was unlikely to be pleased by their bucolic subjects. Or so Feuilly guessed, for he had no real idea what kinds of people Prouvaire let into his life; what he knew of Prouvaire would hardly fill a page.

“I never thought to see you somewhere so ordinary,” Feuilly replied. “I would expect you to be in an opium den, or a fortuneteller’s. Neither place would have thrown you out.”

“I must be ordinary sometimes. My mother is not so strange, and is very fashionable.  A Duvelleroy fan would make her the envy of all her neighbors.”

Animated by a sudden impulse, Prouvaire brought the two of them to a halt with a hand on Feuilly’s chest. Prouvaire had to tilt his head back to look Feuilly in the eye, the angle unfair to the roundness of his chin. “You are a fanmaker. You could make my mother a fan.”

 “I paint the leaves. Perhaps last century, I could’ve made your mother a fan.”

When Prouvaire furrowed his brows together, Feuilly almost wanted to touch him. It must be exasperating, having one’s emotions read as invitations.

“I do not understand the obstacle,” Prouvaire said.

Feuilly retreated into a side street so he could take out the fan Ankwicz always left in his coat, just in case there was an opportunity to make a sale. He unfolded it fully, displaying all nine of the muses. “How many people do you think worked on this fan?”

“One.”

“Six. I colored the scene. The sticks were made in Oise, then shipped to my atelier. We hire a lithographer to copy the painting, a printer to reproduce it, a painter to color it, a seamstress to lace it, and an embroiderer to finish it. None of us can do the work of anyone else. ”

Prouvaire held the fan in his hands, lightly stroking his fingers over the leaves. “This is the automation of art.”

“And its democratization.  Art which is not reproduced stays in the hands of those who can afford it, and will not keep a woman cool in the summer heat.” 

“Yet there is no permanence in this.” Prouvaire’s expression was intent, his face giving itself over to thoughtfulness. “An image loses meaning with each reproduction. Art can be consumed. Eaten.”

“Would you rather leave art hidden behind a grille? Kept holy by scarcity?”

There was in Prouvaire an antiquated respect for greatness, a belief in genius. Feuilly felt it was reared with wealth, a reverence for the rare. Enjolras had it too, that trust in the ability of a great man to rise up and change history with a sweep of his hand. Yet for Alexander there were thousands of widows, emptied towns, and the people who had made him great, the nameless of Macedon, subordinated to their golden son.

“No. I am always a few centuries behind, and I am afraid of industry; it is a sea of monsters to me,” Prouvaire replied, tracing the fan’s seams with his thumb. “Are you close to your fellow workers?”

Feuilly felt suddenly wrong-footed, as Prouvaire seemed to pull things out of order. He could say yes and excuse himself, but he had no reason to be dishonest to Prouvaire, other than his own commanding desire for privacy. “No.”

“But it is your choice. I do not think you lack sympathy, my friend,” Prouvaire said.

The word ‘friend’ seemed to be a challenge. He wasn’t certain that he wished for Prouvaire to know him, to work his uncanny brain on Feuilly’s quotidian mysteries.

“You are very quick, which makes you difficult,” Feuilly said. “You will reach the twentieth century ahead of me, even if you will not live in the nineteenth.”

“I do not like thinking of time as a race. It implies getting somewhere in a hurry, and that something will be won.”

“Would you rather saunter forwards?”

Prouvaire frowned from his brows to his chin. "I have no accord with the selfishness of the _flâneur_. But you remind me that I arranged to meet with Grantaire at the Corinthe an hour past - he is probably just now sauntering in. He wouldn’t mind your company, and I desire it.”

Grantaire and Feuilly had something of a friendship. They were both artists, though Grantaire rarely needed to sell anything. Feuilly liked Grantaire, who had learned how to color like David but applied it carelessly. It was only rarely that they talked about anything personal.

“I surrender my day to you,” Feuilly said.

Prouvaire handed the fan back, touching him briefly with warm fingers. Feuilly shut the fan with a single flick of his wrist, to Prouvaire’s amusement. It didn’t take long for Prouvaire to hail a cab to Les Halles, removing the need for their conversation to go too far without the safety of a third person. But that didn’t stop Prouvaire’s knees from bumping against his in the carriage. Feuilly felt like he was being seduced, quietly.

When they entered the Corinthe, it was not yet five o’clock. They had hours before the mild April sun would set, but the tavern was already impenetrably dark. Grantaire hailed them from the back, his corner a nest of wine bottles and stuffed carp.

“Ah ha! My patron arrives,” he said, sweeping his arm over the table. “But you seem to have turned your favor on another artist, though I cannot fault you for the decision. And you are dressed particularly fine today, Feuilly – please tell me you are only flirting with the bourgeoisie, not planning to infiltrate it.”

“Sheathe your claws, Mammon,” Prouvaire replied. He took a seat near Grantaire, gesturing for Feuilly to take the one next to him.

“It is not my habit to disappoint you,” Feuilly said, provoking a laugh from Grantaire.

“I forgot you’re funny. You are so good at being serious, Feuilly. You are entirely like Prouvaire in that regard. I fear your union.”

Prouvaire blushed, obvious even in the poor lighting. “You take liberties, Grantaire.”

“I _love_ liberty! I will take her everywhere. She accessorizes me nicely, and does not complain that I do her no services. Feuilly, you must try the carp. _Carpe carpem_.”

Grantaire was not normally so talkative around Feuilly, and his conversation with Prouvaire had a frenetic edge. Latin and the indulgences of Roman emperors took them all the way through their meal, though Prouvaire ate lightly and spared only a few words of disagreement for Grantaire’s sophistry.  

“I dislike your love of the _Raft of the Medusa_ ,” Grantaire said, pointing at Prouvaire with his fork. “It is ghastly. The colors are too brown, the suffering is medieval.”

“You are jealous.”

For the first time that night, Grantaire paused. Feuilly had no interest in mediating a lover’s argument, but he knew that whatever Grantaire and Prouvaire had once had with each other, it was long past. He felt the warmth of Prouvaire’s hand on his under the table.

“Who is not?” Grantaire replied. “Genius strikes too selectively. It will never strike me, which is a tragedy, because my dreams of greatness are beautifully grand. Fantasy keeps all men warm at night, and they’ll suffer indignity and humiliation as long as they can spit on their betters with their wasted potential.”

“You are not the universe,” Feuilly said.

Grantaire guffawed. “A pity there is no nation of Grantaires. What unfortunate satraps we would elect to listen to the plaints of a conglomerate of melancholics. God – I weep for my people.”

“So you admit to being a democrat,” added Feuilly.

“By necessity. Grantaires are not the stuff of kings, and no king would have us. _Noblesse_ is not obliged.” Grantaire drummed his fingers on the table, the fork clicking along. “Yes, I am jealous. Géricault is in the ground with his laurels, and I am above with life, health, friendship, and a bare head.”

Prouvaire rested his chin on his free hand, leaving his left to drift down Feuilly’s thigh.

“I met Géricault when I was fourteen. I snuck away from my father and made my way to Géricault’s home, then climbed through his window. I found him in his bedroom. He was so sick, he thought I was an angel.” Prouvaire smiled. “I absolved him of all his sins before leaving with a sketch.”

He imagined Géricault waiting to die, confronted by a pretty youth in the haze of his consumptive fever. Prouvaire would have ministered to him with overpowering tenderness, and how else would a painter think of a boy with such old eyes, but that he was an angel? Anything otherwise would seem absurd.

“What was the sketch?” Feuilly asked.

“His doctor.”

“Illness made his scope very small,” Grantaire said.

“There was nothing small about his portraits of the mad,” Feuilly replied.  

“Scribblings, compared to the _Medusa_. Art already does so little, it must be done to the world’s scale, or it will do nothing at all.”

Art should not have a scale. When Prosper first tried to awaken Feuilly’s interest in art, only two days after he’d arrived, he was taken to the Louvre. Dressed in his orphanage rags, still malnourished and undersized, Feuilly felt nothing but shame in front of the towering works of art. _The Apotheosis of Henry IV_ was four meters tall, dominated by fleshy gods whose names Feuilly did not know. “They are carrying the king to Heaven,” Prosper told him, and that explained their full, healthy bodies; a king was no light burden. Feuilly kept silent, because he did not yet know that Prosper would never be angry with him, and that his arthritic hands never formed a fist. But Feuilly found himself able to feel empty, now that his stomach was not.

He had spent a long time looking at Watteau’s painting of a Pierrot. The _commedia dell’arte_ may as well have taken place on another continent, for all that Feuilly knew of it. But he liked the soft look of the man’s face, and how the colors did not make his head ache. Prosper was encouraged. After they ate dinner – and Feuilly did not realize how stingily they dined for many years afterwards – Prosper made a show of retrieving something from his trunk. “Since you liked one Watteau, I thought I would show you another,” he said, his mouth a thin smile as he pressed a print into Feuilly’s hands.  “This was an engraving by my grandfather, Pierre-Alexandre. Watteau did the original painting, _The Signboard of Gersaint_ , for a friend of his, while he kept the winter chill off his fingers.”

Feuilly did not know where to focus his eyes. Everything was interesting, in a language he understood. Elegant men and women from a previous age were coming to Gersaint’s shop to buy paintings of all subjects. Prosper explained further, pointing out how the portrait of Louis XIV was being boxed up. It was so ordinary an end, the Sun King cushioned by no more than hay, that Feuilly almost laughed with relief. He touched Louis with his index finger, feeling the ink. Art could make a king very small.

The memory was not for Feuilly to share. His childhood was a country which admitted no one.  

Prouvaire banged his fists on the table. “Scale is unimportant. Art must be reproduced for all to consume,” he said, his voice growing deeper and louder, so naturally it seemed as if Prouvaire’s usual quietness was an affectation. “I do not recant that mass production diminishes meaning, but what is reproduced for millions every Sunday without any loss of signification?”

“Martin Luther would disagree,” Grantaire said.

“Martyrdom. Only the dead can shepherd the future.”

“ _Morbleu_ , is that how you believe the July Revolution failed? There were not enough sacramental corpses?”

“Yes,” Prouvaire intoned.

Grantaire made a clumsy show of taking some money out of his pockets. He was too upset to even try to make Prouvaire pay for his portion, which was entirely out of character.

“If I wanted to drink with Christ, I would go to church.” Grantaire tossed some coins on the table. “Enjoy your death, Prouvaire, and I bid the both of you goodnight.”

He stumbled out. Grantaire’s temper was not usually so short, but Prouvaire could inspire depths of feeling in either direction.

Prouvaire relaxed against the back of his seat. “Do you think I misspoke?”

“You are too eager to die. Your mother would miss you.”

“She would. I am her only friend.”

“It is the orphan’s privilege to pass unnoticed,” Feuilly said.

“I would weep for you.”

“You weep for everyone.”

“It is democratic,” Prouvaire replied. He crossed his arms; the gesture made him appear even younger. “Does love become weaker if it is felt too freely? It seems monstrous, to love my mother only a little better than everyone else.”

“I wouldn’t know. I have never loved anyone in particular.”

“I have tried, but it did not suit me,” Prouvaire said, looking towards the door. “Grantaire loves too singularly. No one can please him for very long, because we are all mortal, in the end. He would have made a fine Roman priest. I am afraid that wine has made me morose, and I’m slipping back into other centuries.”

Prouvaire drew himself to his feet. “I am retiring for the night. Join me?”

It would have been very easy to tell Prouvaire no. He doubted Prouvaire would even find hurt in the rejection. But Prouvaire had exposed too much of himself, and Feuilly had found too many sympathies between them to leave so soon. There was a basic selfishness in Feuilly, too, for Prouvaire, with his languid movements and his cherub’s mouth.

* * *

Prouvaire lived in a spacious apartment dating back to the reign of Louis XIII. Much of the furniture seemed original to the building, as well as the portress. She called Feuilly ‘monsieur’ as she took Ankwicz’s coat; he would have preferred the simple ‘you’ his worker’s clothes would have earned him. The fan fell out, Prouvaire beating both of them to take it off the floor.

“Is this as you expected?” Prouvaire asked.

“Almost. I’m surprised there are no saint’s knucklebones.”

“Oh, I donated those.” His smile did not indicate whether he was joking or not. “I wanted to become a priest, before 1830. My father was very happy when I told him my decision, because even a seditionist might carry on the family legacy.”  

“Will you?”

“No.”

After the portress left, Prouvaire tried to flick open the fan with one motion as Feuilly had, only half-succeeding. “Don’t worry about Mme Moigne – she’s an old Jacobin.” Prouvaire gave up on his wrist, and peeled the fan open with both hands. “Is it true that ladies speak a secret language with their fans?”

Feuilly could not hold himself back from laughing as Prouvaire held the fan spread out over one eye. “If they did, do you think they would let men know about it? It was an invention of your M. Duvelleroy, a pamphlet he passed out with his cheapest fans. You have just signed that you are engaged.”

“What a shame!” Prouvaire said, fanning himself as he grinned. “I had hoped for new vocabularies of desire.”

“You are doing well enough in the old world.”

Prouvaire moved closer to him, a sharpness to his eyes as he looked upwards which made it clear Prouvaire had not actually drunk much at all. He gathered up the fabric of Feuilly’s waistcoat in his delicate fingers, not quite pressing their bodies together. “I like this moment best, when there are more possibilities for love than ends, and the body still has its mysteries. But I am too human to stay here forever, and love of the Christian kind is better than the Platonic, anyway.”

It was a sweet way to ask for a kiss, as if Feuilly’s consent hadn’t already been given. He would tease Prouvaire about it, if Prouvaire were not so earnest. That was his most truly outdated quality, being earnest in a cynical age. Feuilly kissed his mouth gently, willing to draw out Prouvaire’s possibilities as long as he wanted. But Prouvaire had other needs, and drew Feuilly backwards towards his bedroom.

None of Prouvaire’s wallpaper could have been less than a hundred years old. The oil lamps, surely lit by Mme Moigne, were perhaps a little newer. Prouvaire slept like a pasha, in purple satin with Oriental pillows. Gorgons were carved into the bedposts. Feuilly thought of Mme Moigne, and how she had anticipated her employer’s needs. Did she worry about his soul?

Feuilly lifted Prouvaire onto the ridiculous bed, dealing neatly with their difference in height. There was youthful eagerness in the way Prouvaire pulled Feuilly down with him. Breathing softly as he followed the lines of Feuilly’s collarbones, Prouvaire grasped his shoulders through the fabric of his shirt. It reminded Feuilly that his clothes were not his to dirty, and he started to take off his waistcoat. Prouvaire helped him at first by untucking Feuilly’s shirt from his trousers, but then his hands wandered to finger the buttons of his fly. The plushness of the mattress made undressing themselves difficult, the goosedown shifting like a canal boat, and Prouvaire’s hands never seemed to leave Feuilly.  

Prouvaire’s head was finally level with Feuilly’s when he settled in his lap and leaned forward to kiss him, deeply enough for teeth to be pressing behind his soft lips. The warm light from the lamps still left much of Prouvaire’s face in shadow, his darkened eyes seeming to look at him from some other place. But then Prouvaire’s expression turned, his mouth hinting at his earlier playfulness and he briefly looked his proper age. After taking everything else so slowly, when Prouvaire wrapped his hand around their erections, it seemed that the mere touch sunk directly into Feuilly’s spine. Feuilly gripped Prouvaire’s backside and pulled him forwards until they were truly flush together. Prouvaire could be impatient after all, as he tightened his fingers and thrust against Feuilly, his back arching enough for Feuilly to feel the bones of Prouvaire’s back when he dragged one hand up to his shoulder.

It wasn’t long before Prouvaire started breathing roughly as his brows creased in concentration, his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open.  When his movements weakened and turned uncoordinated, Feuilly took over. He put his hand over Prouvaire’s, guiding his strokes as Prouvaire moaned and tucked his head against Feuilly’s neck. Feuilly himself felt nearly gone at the sensation of Prouvaire rocking into him, holding on tightly with his thighs. Prouvaire came first, releasing on Feuilly’s chest as he kissed his shoulders.

“Would you accept my mouth?” Prouvaire asked. At Feuilly’s ‘yes,’ Prouvaire pushed Feuilly back on the bed and lowered his lips to his cock. “Imagining this brought me over,” he said, blushing again, not so much out of shame as from his fair complexion. Prouvaire circled his tongue around the head of Feuilly’s prick, then took half his length, making a pleased sound. Although it wasn’t the first time anyone had fellated Feuilly, Prouvaire was the only man to be charmingly open in his enjoyment of the act. He sucked noisily, quick to use his hands for what his mouth couldn’t fit. His hair kept falling over his eyes, so Feuilly reached over and tucked it out of the way. Prouvaire grinned and lightly used his teeth, and though Feuilly was normally quiet, he still groaned at the pressure.

“I’m close,” Feuilly whispered. Prouvaire drummed his fingers on Feuilly’s thigh before reaching down to palm his sack, taking him even deeper until he could feel the back of Prouvaire’s throat. Feuilly dug his fingers into the mattress, biting his own hand to keep from making too much noise as he spent himself in Prouvaire’s mouth.

“I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of you,” Prouvaire said, wiping his chin. “I’ll get something to wash off.”

Prouvaire rose to his feet and walked out, completely nude and with enviable energy. Feuilly hoped he wouldn’t hear him calling for Mme Moigne to fetch a washbasin.

* * *

As he always did, Feuilly woke at sunrise. Prouvaire was already up, sitting at the window and wearing an 18th century banyan.

“I wonder if we have become close enough for me to be rude to you,” Prouvaire said.

Feuilly sat up and reached for a glass of water by the bed which hadn’t been there before. Coffee, bread, and jam had also materialized overnight, and his clothes had been hung up neatly in one corner. “You will have to test that question.”

“Why are you with Les Amis de l’ABC, and not one of the worker’s organizations?”

“How long have you held on to that question?” Feuilly asked, sipping on Mme Moigne’s coffee.

“Only since dinner. I think that some others likely hold it under the tip of their tongue, like a charm.”

“Have you ever been to a worker’s meeting?”

Prouvaire shook his head.

“They are all fathers. They talk about their hungry children, about the suffering of their wives, and how they do not know if they will have a home for the season. The future is only their own flesh – no man would choose another’s family over his own, and that is the root of all inequality. I have sympathy for the workers, but their cause is not mine. A father is a king in his household, and a king father to the nation.”

“‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple,’” Prouvaire said quietly. “I have seen books of bloody Christs, the red ink faded by the kisses of thousands of pilgrims.”

“That is the only kind of love which will better the world.”

“Yes. If only it were easy.”

Sunlight did nothing to make Prouvaire seem less of a heavenly visitation. His form was one of soft contours, his muscles still hidden by boyishness. Feuilly had looked the same at twenty as he did at twenty-eight, which was not so different from when he was fifteen. He was tall out of stubbornness, but he would always be thin, his frame that of a man who would never be filled in. Prouvaire, on the other hand, Feuilly considered as he pressed his fingers against delicate skin, could look completely different in a year or two. The bodies of the poor were mapped out so swiftly, whereas the rich were chimeras that grew like mongrels, bigger and hungrier than their parents.

But he did not think that would happen to Prouvaire, who wanted no legacy.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic absolutely would not exist without the patience and support of [twofrontteethstillcrooked](twofrontteethstillcrooked.tumblr.com). 
> 
> A few historical notes for this long monster:
> 
> 1\. Pierre-Alexandre Aveline was a real person, but Prosper was not. 
> 
> 2\. _The Apotheosis of Henry IV_ was painted by Peter Paul Rubens for Marie de' Medici. 
> 
> 3\. For more of Prouvaire's _Raft of the Medusa_ feels, see [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/815894/chapters/1659736). 
> 
> 4\. All the information on fanmaking was gleaned from poking through old posts on Livejournal by [10littlebullets](10littlebullets.livejournal.com) and [MmeBahorel](http://mmebahorel.livejournal.com). 
> 
> 5\. The Bible verse Prouvaire quotes is Luke 14:26. 
> 
> 6\. Jean-Pierre Duvelleroy was also a real dude, and you can see an English translation of his original fan language guide [here](http://www.duvelleroy.fr/en/content/19-the-language-of-the-fan).
> 
> 7\. Prouvaire is referencing _Le Dictionnaire Infernal_ when he calls Grantaire 'Mammon,' the demon of avarice. Granted, Mammon is listed in a couple other sources, but it's the _Dictionnaire Infernal_ which lists Mammon as the ambassador to England, the dirty Anglophile.


End file.
